UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN RECOVERS STOLEN ASHES OF DARIEN EHORN, 23 YEAR OLD WOMAN WHO RODE IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF AN SUV THAT CRASHED IN PARADISE, CALIFORNIA

Unidentified Woman is not the womanof this story. Unidentified Womansimply went to Paradise, broughtthe dead back to life. UnidentifiedWoman had a daughter, had donethis all before, had dreamt ofpomegranate trees, the crackedfruits on the ground below givingway to a thousand ruby-skinnedfragments left unscathed, haddreamt of traveling the continentand translating every echo fromhere to there but she only madeit from paradise back to damned.

Unidentified Woman does not askwhy a man would steal a woman’sashes only to reject them, throwingthem out of his Chevy window onRoute 70, half an hour south ofParadise, does not ask for arereward, does not tell her daughterit will be ok.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN ROBS 66 YEAR OLD MAN AT A BURGER KING IN THE BRONX

It’s knowing you’ll be askedif you’d like anything else whenyou need everything elsebut only have a loose cigarette, a couple dollarsworth of quarters for the laundryyou’ll wash by hand instead becauseeven though it never turns out as softthat way at first, a half an hour laterthe day has already beaten out thefolds and warned them there’s nocoming back. Unidentified Womanwould have starched and ironed herdress nonetheless but she knew theirdocuments would only say:female, middle-aged, wearing ablack durag like an appendix.telling you all you need to know inthe chapter that comes before.

It’s knowing you’ll be calledby an order number not a name, acorrespondence between value andclaim, its every letter a shareholdernegotiated through the tongues thatrefuse to learn to speak you.Unidentified Woman has alreadytold you how to pronounce her name.Her old gold locket is gonemelted down at $135, 4 grams.The faces of her parents, antiquatedand fading twenty yearswere first scratched out with a hairpin.In dreams she faces them shouting Mine.How they shake with laughter,silver fillings catching the sun.

Stephanie Kaylor is a writer from upstate New York. She holds a MA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University at Albany and is currently finishing a MA in Philosophy at the European Graduate School. Stephanie is Reviews Editor for Glass: A Journal of Poetry and her poetry has appeared in a number of journals including BlazeVOX, The Willow Review, and altpoetics.